Blake Jutton is the owner, operator and majority shareholder of Northside Drafthouse & Eatery, which he opened with General Manager Jared Herrera in 2017.He looked at locations for his business as far away as Stillwater, Oklahoma, but when he visited a friend living near the University of Texas at Dallas, he knew the demographics were ideal.
“I [checked] how many [students] go here. ... I checked where the nearest bar was, and it was like 3 miles away,” Jutton said.
Before finding the spot, Jutton had already named his business. When his real estate agent showed him the spot on Northside Boulevard, he said “it was a very happy coincidence.”Herrera started in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher in 2009, then worked his way up to becoming a chef in fine-dining restaurants. When hired to be the chef and general manager at Northside, Herrera prepared a list of 100 potential items for their menu.
“He brought me the mac and cheese pizza idea,” Jutton said. “I said, ‘No way was that going to work.’”
